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Trump’s Best Deal Ever: Privatize the Interstates

Proceeds could provide a permanent basic income to every citizen. Pie in the sky? Ask an Alaskan.

By

Vernon L. Smith

June 27, 2017 7:13 p.m. ET

President Trump, please consider a major expansion in your thinking. You’ve promised to rebuild America’s crumbling roads, bridges and airports, and you’ve proposed to privatize air-traffic control. Now privatize the interstate highway system, including all those bridges in need of repair and major upgrading.

The stimulus programs of 2008-09 both fell short of their promise to rebuild. And how many times do we have to learn that the gasoline tax, intended exclusively for highway construction and maintenance, isn’t used that...